The Vitals

My name is Kristin. I live with my husband (A.), three young sons (Cubby, Charlie, and Jack), one infant daughter (Poppy), and old collie dog (Mia) less than a mile from the Canadian border in the far northern woods of upstate New York. Once upon a time I was going country. Now I'm gone.

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Thursday, April 24, 2008

Let's Talk Fashion

Or rather, my lack thereof.

There was a time, a brief but uncomfortable time, when I wore pantyhose every day. I used to work in politics (AND NEVER, EVER WILL AGAIN--was that emphatic enough?) and I had to dress up to impress all the important (and lecherous and stupid) state senators . Wearing pantyhose in the 110 degree Phoenix heat was bad enough, but the worst part was the heels every day. I think it permanently crippled me.

My next job didn't have a dress code. In fact, the president of the company regularly wandered around barefoot, which I found quite disgusting. I really hope he didn't go into the bathroom barefoot. ANYWAY, even though I didn't have to dress up, I usually dressed fairly nicely. I never wore my running shoes to work, for example, which was a common practice among my colleagues. Mostly this was because I had nice clothes left over from my more professional days, so I kept wearing them. But also, I like to dress nicely. Makes me more confident. And that's a big help when you're working as a proofreader and your primary duty is pointing out other people's mistakes. Proofreaders are very popular. Snort.

ANYWAY AGAIN, now that I don't work outside the house, and do an awful lot of manual labor around the house, my clothes have gotten pretty pathetic. Jeans and sweatshirts feature heavily. Shoe shopping now involves satisfying one criteria: Shoes that won't sink into the ground. That pretty much rules out heels. Not that I'm crying over that. But the problem is, people are always coming to our house. UPS, various family members, visitors to see the sheep, workmen, total strangers who want to exclaim about our peonies by the road (that actually happened), the list goes on and on. And I feel at a disadvantage when I greet them wearing, as I am today, jeans with a patch on the butt, a stained t-shirt, and a really geeky straw hat. How am I supposed to feel confident in that?

I have two options, as I see it: Refuse to do any work outside so I can wear heels and non-denim pants, or barricade the driveway so no one can come up it.

2 comments:

Don't forget the boss' Homer shirt! Yeah, well, even in my very casual, sloppy clothes, I still somehow dress better than a lot of people here. I'd say you always showed me up, though. But I don't care. Sometimes I'm really glad that I work someplace where I don't have to dress nicely. Other times I think that if I had to dress a little better, I'd feel a little bit better about myself. How What Not To Wear of me.